In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview 86-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage 50 years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States. In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile.

5 out of 5 stars

A "must hear"

By
D. Welch
on
05-09-18

The Strange Career of William Ellis

The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire

By:
Karl Jacoby

Narrated by:
JD Jackson

Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
37

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
35

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
35

To his contemporaries in Gilded Age Manhattan, Guillermo Eliseo was a fantastically wealthy Mexican, the proud owner of a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park, a busy Wall Street office, and scores of mines and haciendas in Mexico. But for all his obvious riches and his elegant appearance, Eliseo was also the possessor of a devastating secret: He was not, in fact, from Mexico at all. Rather, he had begun life as a slave named William Ellis, born on a cotton plantation in Texas during the waning years of King Cotton.

5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating Tale of Racial Passing

By
Steven
on
06-10-16

Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

By:
Sarah Bird

Narrated by:
Bahni Turpin

Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
191

Performance

5 out of 5 stars
176

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
177

Powerful, epic, and compelling, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen shines light on a nearly forgotten figure in history. Cathy Williams was born and lived a slave - until the Union army comes and destroys the only world she’s known. Separated from her family, she makes the impossible decision - to fight in the army disguised as a man with the Buffalo Soldiers. With courage and wit, Cathy must not only fight for her survival and freedom in the ultimate man’s world, but never give up on her mission to find her family, and the man she loves.

5 out of 5 stars

A WONDERFUL BOOK !!!

By
Susita
on
09-29-18

The Husband Hunters

American Heiresses Who Married into the British Aristocracy

By:
Anne de Courcy

Narrated by:
Clare Corbett

Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
244

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
211

Story

4 out of 5 stars
209

Towards the end of the 19th century and for the first few years of the 20th, a strange invasion took place in Britain. The citadel of power, privilege, and breeding in which the titled, land-owning governing class had barricaded itself for so long was breached. The incomers were a group of young women who, 50 years earlier, would have been looked on as the alien denizens of another world - the New World, to be precise. From 1874 - the year that Jennie Jerome, the first known "Dollar Princess", married Randolph Churchill - to 1905, dozens of young American heiresses married into the British peerage....

5 out of 5 stars

Very interesting and well read!

By
Raven
on
09-01-18

The Healing

A Novel

By:
Jonathan Odell

Narrated by:
Adenrele Ojo

Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
402

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
357

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
354

Mississippi plantation mistress Amanda Satterfield loses her daughter to cholera after her husband refuses to treat her for what he considers to be a “slave disease.” Insane with grief, Amanda takes a newborn slave child as her own and names her Granada, much to the outrage of her husband and the amusement of their white neighbors. Troubled by his wife’s disturbing mental state and concerned about a mysterious plague sweeping through his slave population, Master Satterfield purchases Polly Shine, a slave reputed to be a healer.

5 out of 5 stars

In the remembering this book brought me to tears

By
Marjo
on
04-09-13

Wild Seed

By:
Octavia E. Butler

Narrated by:
Dion Graham

Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
3,334

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
3,003

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
3,003

Doro is an entity who changes bodies like clothes, killing his hosts by reflexor design. He fears no one...until he meets Anyanwu. Anyanwu is a shapeshifter who can absorb bullets and heal with a kiss and savage anyone who threatens her. Together they weave a pattern of destiny unimaginable to mortals.

4 out of 5 stars

Fairy Tale... even if it's not

By
Annette
on
12-23-09

Barracoon

The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"

By:
Zora Neale Hurston

Narrated by:
Robin Miles

Length: 3 hrs and 50 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,894

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,718

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,707

In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview 86-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage 50 years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States. In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile.

5 out of 5 stars

A "must hear"

By
D. Welch
on
05-09-18

The Strange Career of William Ellis

The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire

By:
Karl Jacoby

Narrated by:
JD Jackson

Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
37

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
35

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
35

To his contemporaries in Gilded Age Manhattan, Guillermo Eliseo was a fantastically wealthy Mexican, the proud owner of a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park, a busy Wall Street office, and scores of mines and haciendas in Mexico. But for all his obvious riches and his elegant appearance, Eliseo was also the possessor of a devastating secret: He was not, in fact, from Mexico at all. Rather, he had begun life as a slave named William Ellis, born on a cotton plantation in Texas during the waning years of King Cotton.

5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating Tale of Racial Passing

By
Steven
on
06-10-16

Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

By:
Sarah Bird

Narrated by:
Bahni Turpin

Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
191

Performance

5 out of 5 stars
176

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
177

Powerful, epic, and compelling, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen shines light on a nearly forgotten figure in history. Cathy Williams was born and lived a slave - until the Union army comes and destroys the only world she’s known. Separated from her family, she makes the impossible decision - to fight in the army disguised as a man with the Buffalo Soldiers. With courage and wit, Cathy must not only fight for her survival and freedom in the ultimate man’s world, but never give up on her mission to find her family, and the man she loves.

5 out of 5 stars

A WONDERFUL BOOK !!!

By
Susita
on
09-29-18

The Husband Hunters

American Heiresses Who Married into the British Aristocracy

By:
Anne de Courcy

Narrated by:
Clare Corbett

Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
244

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
211

Story

4 out of 5 stars
209

Towards the end of the 19th century and for the first few years of the 20th, a strange invasion took place in Britain. The citadel of power, privilege, and breeding in which the titled, land-owning governing class had barricaded itself for so long was breached. The incomers were a group of young women who, 50 years earlier, would have been looked on as the alien denizens of another world - the New World, to be precise. From 1874 - the year that Jennie Jerome, the first known "Dollar Princess", married Randolph Churchill - to 1905, dozens of young American heiresses married into the British peerage....

5 out of 5 stars

Very interesting and well read!

By
Raven
on
09-01-18

The Healing

A Novel

By:
Jonathan Odell

Narrated by:
Adenrele Ojo

Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
402

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
357

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
354

Mississippi plantation mistress Amanda Satterfield loses her daughter to cholera after her husband refuses to treat her for what he considers to be a “slave disease.” Insane with grief, Amanda takes a newborn slave child as her own and names her Granada, much to the outrage of her husband and the amusement of their white neighbors. Troubled by his wife’s disturbing mental state and concerned about a mysterious plague sweeping through his slave population, Master Satterfield purchases Polly Shine, a slave reputed to be a healer.

5 out of 5 stars

In the remembering this book brought me to tears

By
Marjo
on
04-09-13

Wild Seed

By:
Octavia E. Butler

Narrated by:
Dion Graham

Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
3,334

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
3,003

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
3,003

Doro is an entity who changes bodies like clothes, killing his hosts by reflexor design. He fears no one...until he meets Anyanwu. Anyanwu is a shapeshifter who can absorb bullets and heal with a kiss and savage anyone who threatens her. Together they weave a pattern of destiny unimaginable to mortals.

4 out of 5 stars

Fairy Tale... even if it's not

By
Annette
on
12-23-09

Always & Forever: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance

Plantation Series, Book 1

By:
Gretchen Craig

Narrated by:
Allyson Johnson

Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
189

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
172

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
172

Since they were children running barefoot about Toulouse Plantation, Josie and Cleo have been as close as sisters, forging an unbreakable bond that defies their roles as mistress and slave. Together, the two have shared secrets and protected each other through happiness and heartbreak. They never dream they could also share an intense passion for the same man, the elegant, charming, and irresistibly seductive Bertrand Chamard.

5 out of 5 stars

Very juicy!

By
MzL8dy
on
12-08-18

The Wedding Gift

By:
Marlen Suyapa Bodden

Narrated by:
Jenna Lamia,
January LaVoy

Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,111

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,015

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,020

When Cornelius Allen gives his daughter Clarissa’s hand in marriage, he presents her with a wedding gift: the young slave she grew up with, Sarah. Sarah is also Allen’s daughter and Clarissa’s sister, a product of his longtime relationship with his house slave, Emmeline. When Clarissa’s husband suspects that their newborn son is illegitimate, Clarissa and Sarah are sent back to her parents, Cornelius and Theodora, in shame, setting in motion a series of events that will destroy this once-powerful family.

5 out of 5 stars

Wow! You must listen to this audio book!

By
C. Crawford
on
01-19-14

The Darkest Child

By:
Delores Phillips

Narrated by:
Bahni Turpin

Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
2,338

Performance

5 out of 5 stars
2,132

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
2,124

In 1958 Georgia, the shade of a 13-year-old black girl's skin can make the difference in her fate. Tangy Mae is the smartest of her mother's 10 children, but she is also the darkest complected. The Quinns - all different skin shades, all with unknown fathers - live with their charismatic, beautiful, and tyrannical mother, Rozelle, in poverty on the fringes of a Georgia town where Jim Crow rules. Rozelle's children live in fear of her mood swings and her violence, but they are devoted to her. Rozelle pulls her children out of school when they are 12 years old so that they can help support her by going to work.

5 out of 5 stars

My heart couldn't take it

By
NIXX1993
on
03-01-18

Slavery by Another Name

The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II

By:
Douglas A. Blackmon

Narrated by:
Dennis Boutsikaris

Length: 15 hrs and 53 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,141

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
976

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
968

In this groundbreaking historical expose, Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history - an Age of Neoslavery that thrived from the aftermath of the Civil War through the dawn of World War II.

5 out of 5 stars

Powerful book!

By
Kristi R.
on
04-08-14

Varina

A Novel

By:
Charles Frazier

Narrated by:
Molly Parker

Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
560

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
514

Story

4 out of 5 stars
509

With her marriage prospects limited, teenage Varina Howell agrees to wed the much-older widower Jefferson Davis, with whom she expects a life of security as a landowner. He instead pursues a career in politics and is eventually appointed president of the Confederacy, placing Varina at the white-hot center of one of the darkest moments in American history - culpable regardless of her intentions. The Confederacy falling, her marriage in tatters, and the country divided, Varina and her children escape Richmond and travel south on their own, now fugitives.

5 out of 5 stars

The reader and writer had me at hello

By
Norma Mitchell
on
06-09-18

Sister of Mine

A Novel

By:
Sabra Waldfogel

Narrated by:
Bahni Turpin

Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
2,386

Performance

5 out of 5 stars
2,191

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
2,180

When two Union soldiers stumble onto a plantation in northern Georgia on a warm May day in 1864, the last thing they expect is to see the Union flag flying high - or to be greeted by a group of freed slaves and their Jewish mistress. Little do they know that this place has an unusual history. Twelve years prior, Adelaide Mannheim - daughter of Mordecai, the only Jewish planter in the county - was given her own maid, a young slave named Rachel. The two became friends, and soon they discovered a secret.

4 out of 5 stars

A Must Read

By
M. Ryder
on
06-20-16

Publisher's Summary

Journalist Chris Tomlinson grew up hearing stories about his family's abandoned cotton plantation in Falls County, Texas. Most of the tales lionized his white ancestors for pioneering along the Brazos River. His grandfather often said the family's slaves loved them so much that they also took Tomlinson as their last name.

LaDainian Tomlinson, football great and former running back for the San Diego Chargers, spent part of his childhood playing on the same land that his black ancestors had worked as slaves. As a child, LaDainian believed that the Hill was named after his family. Not until he was old enough to read a historical plaque did he realize that the Hill was named for his ancestor's slaveholders.

A masterpiece of authentic American history, Tomlinson Hill traces the true and very revealing story of these two families. From the beginning in 1854 - when the first Tomlinson, a white woman, arrived - to 2007, when the last Tomlinson, LaDainian's father, left, the book unflinchingly explores the history of race and bigotry in Texas. Along the way, it also manages to disclose a great many untruths that are latent in the unsettling and complex story of America.

Marlin Texas...Shaded Greatness from the turn of the century and mid 1800.s

Living an hour from Marlin, TX I was called there to the 1St Methodist Church in 2019 for a HVAC service call. The church is as magnificent as it gets in rural Texas. The Italian Imported Stain Glass Windows are huge and the architects and craftsman of the era must have been the pride of Falls County. The Baptist Church is gorgeous as the Methodist Church. I accidentally went there first as I came into town.

Once I had completed my call and feeling the Holy Spirit running through me, I exited the building through the side door that leads to the office and walked around to the front. My emotions were running high due to my appreciation of fine wood working and especially those windows that seemed to pierce my very soul...as I made my way down the sidewalk I was moved. Moved as I saw this beautiful place of worship fall into disrepair and seeing all of the rif-raf that surrounds this awesome place. I literally wept and looked up the heavens and asked what did this town do to deserve to be in the situation it was in. Moved beyond words...

After driving the hour back to my office I called my wife and told her about my experience of the day. She too was moved.

I have not stopped talking about Marlin since my visit that day. I have a calling, I believe to save the town. Or at least find a way for the town to save itself. .

In my day I get to meet and chat with a bunch of people. I always bring up Marlin. This week as I went on and on about this place a gentleman asked me if I had ever heard this book called Tomlinson's Hill. I said no I haven't and his wife went to looking it up online I cant put it down...Love Marlin